Episode 5 (Primeval)

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“Episode Five”
Primeval episode

The team witness the Pteranodon chase Connor and Rex
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 5
Written by Chris Lang
Directed by Jamie Payne
Production no. 5
Original airdate 10 March 2007
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Episode Five of the ITV sci-fi drama Primeval was broadcast in the UK on 10 March 2007.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

A Pteranodon arrives from 70 million years ago, and trouble begins at a country house when a golfer is killed.

[edit] Plot

Two men are playing golf at a golf course. One is stuck in a bunker; the other hits his ball into a lake. The latter goes to retrieve his ball; the audience sees that the ball rests in front of a horse skull. He hits it again and knocks it into the woods. While searching for it he cuts his hand and shakes it around blowing on it. Blood is shown to fly off it and onto a nearby tree.

Connor Temple and Abby Maitland are talking at Abby's flat and Rex is standing on a table. Abby thinks he has made her beakfast. He hasn't and walks right past her, leaving Abby feeling frustrated.

Back at the golf course, something attacks the bleeding golfer; the other runs to him only to discover what little is left. In the flat Connor plays Oblivion on an Xbox 360, although the fact that the game save is Tom's causes him to stop for a moment, looking sad. He then talks with Abby, who berates him for not looking for a flat of his own. Eventually Abby leaves to do yoga, telling him that when he leaves to close the windows, so Rex can't escape. Shortly afterwards, Abby's phone rings. Connor answers it: it is Cutter, telling him to get to the golf course. He leaves quickly, leaving a window open, and Rex flies out through it. Rex hides in the back of Connor's car without him noticing.

A security team goes to the golf course. Claudia mentions that James Peregrine Lester is getting impatient for results. Nick Cutter and Claudia Brown argue over how things should be handled on this mission. Claudia states that she doesn't want to take Nick or Lester's side. The team inspect the body: the dead golfer has had his flesh shorn off of him almost surgically. Cutter concludes that only 'a creature of phemonal power and savagery' could have done the damage in a matter of minutes. The team search the area, but cannot find an anomaly, but there is a very strong magnetic field. An electricity pylon is suspected as the cause, but there are none near. Then Cutter realises the quiet: there is no bird-song: the birds have been scared away. The team conclude that the creature is an aerial predator, then they look up and see the anomaly overhead. They wonder how to cordon off the air. A Pteranodon then swoops in, barely missing the team.

Connor arrives at the golf course and discovers to his horror that he has inadvertently brought Rex with him. Rex flees from Connor towards the team on the golf course, with Connor in pursuit, (swearing that when he catches him, Rex will 'be the first animal to become extinct twice!).

The team watch the Pteranodon, but Cutter is dubious that it killed the golfer, saying its diet mostly consisted of fish and small reptiles. Connor then appears on the course in pursuit of Rex (though the team don't know this). They look up and see the Pteranodon circling overhead, realising that it isn't looking for a roost as they first thought: it is looking for a meal. The Pteranodon begins to pursue Connor and Rex. Claudia,Captain Tom Ryan and his men arrive, and Claudia orders Ryan to kill the Pteranodon. Though Cutter argues against this, Claudia refuses to put Connor's life at risk. In desperation, Nick shove Ryan so he shoots wide when trying to hit the Pteranodon. The Pteranodon misses Connor and Rex and then flies away.

Nick notices Rex and Abby furiously yells that Connor let him escape. Nick and Claudia both scold Abby for keeping Rex, and Abby gets angry with Connor when he comes over to them after the attack. Claudia furiously accuses the team of being a menace and that in sparing the Pteranodon, they may have let it escape to kill more people. Stephen argues the Pteranodon has been injured and will look for a place nearby to roost. Abby tells Nick that she didn't want the Home Office to keep Rex and do tests on him in a lab, and asks if she can keep him. Nick tells her she should probably find him first.


The team get a satellite view of the area hooked up, and with it see the Pteranodon on top of an abandoned office building. Connor and Abby begin to look through the woods for Rex: Connor tries to make amends with Abby, who is still furious at him for letting Rex escape. Claudia, Nick and Stephen Hart arrive at the building before the special forces. Nick and Stephen have the intention of tranquilizing the Pteranodon so it will not be killed. They ascend to the roof; the Pteranodon flies away before Stephen can shoot it. Nick sees that the Pteranodon's head crest is red and that it is looking for a mate, so he makes a red flag with Stephen's red shirt and a pole from a television antenna to attract the Pteranodon, and Stephen on the third attempt shoots the Pteranodon with the tranquilizer gun. When crashing onto the roof the Pteranodon narrowly misses Claudia. Claudia is infuriated and shouts at Stephen and Nick saying that all orders will now come from her. In its tranquilized stupor the Pteranodon turns its head quickly and knocks out Claudia with its beak. The Pteranodon is taken to the anomaly site and Claudia taken to the medic at the golf course.

In a room, Claudia Brown wakes from the blow with an oxygen mask on. She rises from the stretcher with a start and knocks a blood drip to the floor (although she was never bleeding, so the exact use for this is probably to prompt the final scene). Nick and the medic look at her and come to the conclusion she only has a mild concussion. The medic leaves to get something from the ambulance and Nick flashes the medic's small flashlight in Claudia's eyes claiming that since the doctor's do it, it must actually do something. He asks Claudia how she feels and if anything hurts, Claudia reveals that she cannot see anything. Nick tells her that temporary blindness is a symptom of concussions and that it will pass shortly.

In the wood, Connor and Abby are looking for Rex; all the while Connor is trying to apologize to Abby who refuses to hear it. They finally find Rex, who goes and cowers behind a tree stump looking past the two. They turn around to see a swarm of Anurognathus in the tree behind them. The Anurognathus smell the blood from the fallen blood drip in the hotel and fly away through the trees causing Abby and Connor to duck.

The Pteranodon is carried from the office block to the golf course on a trailer under a tarpaulin. Stephen tests the Pteranodon's feces (including taste, much to the disgust of Captain Ryan and his men) and finds that it contains bones from fish and small reptiles but no human remains, proving that it did not kill the golfer. Stephen calls Nick on his cellphone and tells him of the feces discovery. Nick agrees with this, saying that was what he suspected: the Pteranodon was trying to kill Rex, not Connor. Nick tells Stephen that the battery on his mobile is depleted and shuts it off. He tells Claudia of the discovery, but though she jokingly dismisses it as a lucky guess, Cutter says she is missing the point: if the Pteranodon didn't kill the golfer, what did?

At the golf course, the group of Anurognathus attack and kill the medic. Nick and Claudia hear the medic's scream and Nick hurries to close all the doors and windows in the rooms close to them. Blood attracts the Anurognathus like piranhas, so they head towards Nick and Claudia next, both of whom have blood on them from the drip. Nick tries to find a phone in the building, only to discover that an Anurognathus has bitten through the telephone line. He goes back to Claudia just in time as the Anurognathus, who are beginning to break through the windows of her room. Nick tells Claudia to take off her red (thus blood-coloured)and blood-soaked shirt. They run through a few rooms, with the Anurognathus following, shutting the doors behind them. The Anurognathus break in through a skylight. They go into another room. Nick leaves Claudia, with a kiss, to go to the ambulance as he suspects there is a phone inside it.

Soot and noises come down a chimney in the room. An Anurognathus comes out of the fireplace. She swats it with a golf club and calls "Hole in one!". She swats more that come in. Nick barely jumps into the ambulance before it gets swarmed and begins searching. He find the phone and calls Ryan and informs them of the attack, asking for help. Nick then tries to find something in the ambulance that will allow him to fight back and finds a small cylinder of cyclopropane. He opens its valve and lights the gas with a cigarette lighter (also found in the ambulance, and needing many strikes to make it light) and uses the cylinder as a flamethrower to fend off any Anurognathus that attack him.

As the Anurognathus begin to swarm Claudia, Helen Cutter enters through a side door and leads Claudia out of the room and down to a kitchen, having to lead Claudia as her eyesight is not entirely back to normal. She tells Claudia to stand by a door and to go out when told. . Helen adds a metal pot to a microwave oven after turning on the gas. She opens the door and lets the Anurognathus fly in. Helen tells Claudia to go out, and then goes out through another door. There is an explosion and fire erupts in the room, killing all the Anurognathus. Helen runs just ahead of the flames, narrowly managing to escape.

Outside, Nick (who has just expended his improvised flamethrower) sees some windows of the building blow out and hears the explosion. Stunned he stares at the building while Claudia comes up from behind him and tells him that Helen saved her and again disappeared.

Back in the woods Connor tries to apologize to Abby again, but she is still mad and he tells her that he will move out of her flat tomorrow. Abby finally relents and tells him that if he does the washing up for a month and serves her breakfast on the weekends that he can stay. She says that she actually likes having him around. Connor is excited by this and hugs her, prompting Abby to say she likes having him around as a friend.

On the golf course the Pteranodon wakes and flies off, but they attract it with the red flag and it flies up and back away through the anomaly to its own time. The anomaly disappears.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

  • Final viewing figures for this episode were 6.46 million.

[edit] Continuity

  • Connor is still upset over Tom's death.

[edit] Animals seen

The anomaly led to North America, 70 million years ago:-

  • Pteranodon (one came through the anomaly, returned home.)
  • Anurognathus (a flock came through the anomaly, all were killed in an explosion.)

From elsewhere:-

  • Rex was also seen.


[edit] Errors

  • The Pteranodon is much larger than in reality. It is stated to have had a wingspan of 40 feet, although their real wingspan was 30 feet at most.
  • The Primeval official website consistently misspells Agnurognathus as Anurognathus.
  • The Radio Times wrongly referred to Claudia Brown as "Helen" and the pterosaurs as "flying dinosaurs."
  • Abby left her flat to go to yoga, only to presumably get a call from Cutter and head to the golf course. However, she apparently did not take the car, which Connor used, and did not go back to get it. If she walked, it was unlikely she would arrive before Connor, which she did.

[edit] External links